Courses
BIOL 330 - Study Design and Data Analysis
Recent Undergrad Collaborators & Projects
I have been fortunate to have worked with some fantastic undergraduates! Here’s a quick rundown of who they are, and what we worked on together (in roughly reverse chronological order):
* some pics c/o Freya I, Meg T, and Craig Norris (@ Victoria International Marina)
Liam Singh
(Directed Studies) has been studying hybridization in gulls long before he met me, and project is aimed at quantifying phenotype differences between parent species and their hybrids. He is a hardcore bird nerd, though he’s pretty good all around with his nature, including insects, which is the only reason I let him hang around.
Sarah Johnson
(Directed Studies) is coming aboard in the spring, and her interests include animal behaviour and ecology. Despite her poor decisions regarding weekend work hours, I’m impressed that, according to her, the best thing she did this summer (while doing some enviro consulting work) was crawling through forests looking for a rare land snail.
Olivia Osborne
(Directed Studies) is aiming to join in the spring, possibly working on some projects revolving around plant reproduction & mating systems. Definitely a new dimension for me—and we’ll see if I have finally bit off more than I can scientifically chew. She also knows a surprising amount about soundtracks for a certain (ahem) ’genre’ of film.
Michaela Onasick
(Directed Studies) is investigating the feeding preferences of Banana Slugs for various mushroom species, and how this might influence the dispersal of mushroom spores. As glamorous as it may sound, a lot of the work may involve way too much time inspecting slug poop under a microscope :|
Lily Ahern
(Directed Studies) is studying kelp & decorator crab evolution and behaviour. As if she hasn’t suffered enough already, she holds the record for most courses taken with me (this is her sixth—the poor soul!). Fun fact: she adorns her room (and car) with kelp crab carapaces. To be clear, she was a crab freak even before she joined the lab.
Shayden Younker
(Directed Studies) is studying tent caterpillars and their parasitoids. When not immersed in entomological pursuits, he is bouncing at a local bar and (I imagine) using his cowboy boots to deliver roundhouse kicks to the faces of unruly club-goers, a la Swayze (not Gyllenhaal) in ‘Roadhouse’.
Shelley Russell
(Directed Studies) is studying the impacts of ‘ghost fishing’, via bycatch from abandoned shrimp, prawn, and crab traps. I aspire to be like her one day, in having fly-fishing & spot-prawning chops, as well as my own boat. Whaaat—my students have boats? Being a professor is obviously the wrong gig.
Kea McKay
(Directed Studies) is studying sexual selection and sexual conflict in nudibranchs. Which species? I dunno—all of them! Kea also happens to be my ‘pusha’ when it comes to marine bio merch. Check out her Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Squiddllr
Paula Mali
(Directed Studies) is our friendly-neighbourhood spider girl. She studies the social behaviour and life history of intertidal jumping spiders. This is her second stint in the lab, having done a VKURA previously. One of the things she has taught me is that a competition swimming pool is a balmy 26ºC, which fully explains why I’m such a wimp in the (much colder) ocean around Victoria.
Meg Thompson
(Directed Studies) is studying the interaction between kelp physiological processes and environmental conditions. She arrived with some impressive skills, knowing how to handle ROVs, underwater cameras, and hydrophones. She is also a scuba instructor, which is handy for when I (as a novice snorkel/dive guy) inevitably do something stupid.
Matt Bakken
(Directed Studies) studied the effect of artificial light at night on habitat choice and settlement in marine macroinvertebrate communities. In addition to loving all things marine, he is an avid herp-o-phile. Don’t ask him where he spent his student loans, or why he always has a bottle of (wetsuit) lube handy.
Mariano Garcia-Barandiaran
(Directed Studies) studied the host preference and phenotypic (colour) plasticity of a marine worm, symbiotic with various invertebrates including sea stars and keyhole limpets. He is evidently impervious to cold water and he promises to teach me how to catch some flounder/sole.
Alastair Baird
(Directed Studies) studied evolutionary divergence and sexual dimorphism of raptorial forelimb allometry in ambush bugs. Don’t let him ‘ambush’ you in badminton, or with his profound knowledge of the things to do in Nanaimo!
Marco Joly
(VKURA) worked on the reproductive behaviours of adult intertidal jumping spiders. In addition to unraveling some of the weird behaviours and ecology of these improbable critters, you can find him biking or piloting planes! He is currently enrolled in the Biochemistry and Microbiology program at UVic.
Devin Hentschel
(Honours Thesis) was the full time babysitter of teenaged intertidal jumping spiders, which evidently refuse to grow up, and are not even as angry or angsty as we’d hoped. He also found that the spiders, like us people in Victoria, are oblivious to the idea of winter. He is now working as an environmental consultant in Vancouver.
(Honours Thesis) worked on ambush bug biogeography, and somehow managed to make it look like I know the first thing about climate change. When she’s not getting buff, training for dragon boat races, she’s doing her PhD in arctic ecology at U of Toronto Mississauga. She has the distinction of being the only person I know who got a firearms license before a driver’s license. Her website [here].
Julia Fang
(Thesis Project & NSERC USRA) has worked on several projects including ambush bug life history evolution and reproductive interference in bean beetles. In addition to her scientific advances, she has recently discovered that turkey is actually delicious. She completed her Master of Forest Conservation Biology at U of T and is enrolled in the dentistry program at U of T.
William Chen
(Thesis Project & Research Assistant)—when not Judo-throwing, rabbit wrassling, or learning Ontario fishing regulations—worked on pre-zygotic mating isolation [his 2019 poster here] and locomotory performance in ambush bugs. He is now enrolled in the optometry program at U of Waterloo.
Saanmugi Shanmugadasan
(Research Assistant) did research on condition dependent sexual conflict in water striders, and ambush bug ecology. She holds the record for most Tim Hortons ‘iced caps’ consumed in a single field season, and managed to not die of food poisoning despite storing Eggo waffles in the fridge (not freezer) all summer.
Nikol Dimitrov
(Research Assistant) worked on sexually antagonistic morphology in water striders, and has the unique (unfortunate?) claim of being the only student at UofT who managed to take/tolerate every course I taught there. She has recently completed an MSc in ecology at U of T and works for the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Jenna Cardoso
(WorkStudy) worked on ambush bug growth and development, while piloting/troubleshooting the infamous ‘Predatron 3000’. Later she completed a Master of Forest Conservation degree at UofT, which she has used to master her gardening skillz. She also has a puppy named ‘Stevie’.
April Patmanathan
(Workstudy) studied the vibratory signals & courtship behaviour of ambush bugs. If you have been through the Toronto International Airport, there’s a chance that she knows about the disturbing things you pack in your luggage. After an MSc at UTSC, she is fulfilling her lifelong dream of working on polar bear conservation with the Canadian Wildlife Service!
Roegan Vetro
(Research Assistant) did research on ambush bug immunity, as well as sexual conflict in water striders. He also taught me the weird and diverse habits of Neuropterans. He went on to do his MSc in applied entomology at U of Amsterdam to get in touch with his Euro roots, and to feed his habit for world travel.
Andrew Williams
(Honour’s Thesis) worked on viability selection and predatory morphology in ambush bugs. He went on to do his MSc in environmental sciences at Toronto Metropolitan U, and is probably swimming in mad cheddah (funding $), via the biological version of the ‘Green Rush’.